Kate Hackett
Family relationships can be hard at the best of times but throw an uninsured $30,000 engagement ring in the mix, and boy oh boy, people are setting themselves up for issues.
u/throwaway1846189 recently posted to Reddit’s AITA forum wondering if she was wrong for asking her brother to pay $30,000 after her nephews lost her engagement ring. Reddit had some serious thoughts on the issue, but before we get into them, let’s check out OP’s story.
She explains that she hosted a family dinner over the weekend.
I hosted a family dinner over the weekend. My brother brought my nephews (4 and 8) over as well.
She also has started to keep her engagement ring tucked away in her room.
I used to wear my engagement ring all the time, but lately I keep it in my walk in closet and mainly wear it for special occasions. While I was cleaning up the dinner table, my nephews went to go play while the adults were still in the outdoor patio/outdoor kitchen area. My brother was not supervising his kids.
The kids had gone into her bedroom without any supervision or adult knowledge, found her ring, and started playing with it.
During this time, my nephews went into the master bedroom without anyone knowing and started playing with everything. Including my engagement ring.
When the adults realized the kids were up to something, they flushed the ring down the toilet.
When we came to look for them, they paniced because they know they aren’t supposed to be upstairs, ran into the master bathroom and flushed my ring.
Despite a call to a plumber, that thing was gone.
We called a plumber in case it was somehow in the u trap of the toilet and not actually gone. But nope. Unfortunately it was gone for good.
So OP emailed her brother to try to recoup the loss of the ring. The brother refused.
We still had the original receipt, so I called my brother. I emailed him a scanned copy as proof of the cost and asked him to reimburse me for the ring my nephew flushed. Immediately he started calling me an asshole because we were family and he was just a child. He has refused to repay the cost of my ring.
OP decided she’s willing to go to court over it. But she’s not sure if she’s a jerk.
I told him I will be taking him to court for this and now my entire family is blowing up my phone saying family shouldn’t sue each other and just let it go.
She also added some edits, the most notable was that NOPE, the ring wasn’t insured. Way to go, husband.
Edit: No, the ring was not insured. I found out the day after my nephew flushed it. My husband says he forgot and in the end never actually insured it.
Her brother is trying to push all fiscal responsibility onto OP. He also did not really apologize.
Edit 2: My brother says he does not have the money to repay even $100 per month and has refused any kind of repayment plan. He said I live in a nice enough house and if I want a replacement, I should just sell my car.
Edit 3: My brother, to this day, has not truly apologized. It was a Canadian sorry. Sorry, not sorry. He said kids will do what is normal for kids, and they shouldn’t be held responsible for a ring. They were supposed to supervise their kids outdoors with the rest of the family while I was busy cleaning up.
OP also thinks that her brother can absolutely afford the cost of replacing the ring.
Edit 4: I don’t believe for a second my brother and his wife cannot pay for the cost of my engagement ring. They don’t make anything near my husband but they have a combined income of around 250k. They don’t pay rent or anything because my parents gifted them their old house valued at 3.5 million in Toronto, ON, CA back when I bought my parents a new home years ago. There is no mortgage on the home my brother lives in. The only things my brother and his wife would have to pay for is the cost of raising their children, normal bills, and food. I feel so distraught because my ring holds great sentimental value. I’ve already been speaking with my husband’s family lawyer, but at this point, I’m ready to hire a PI to find out if they really don’t have the money.
Reddit came in hot with NTA verdicts.
Others definitely were caught by the lack of insurance. “You didn’t insure a $30,000 dollar ring?” asked one user, following it up with, “YTA for walking around with a 30K liability the size of a marble and then pointing fingers at whoever touched it last before it disappeared.”
Another user wrote, “That’s the first thing you’re supposed to do because accidents happen, even if you don’t wear your ring often. They get stolen, or niblings flush them randomly. Hence – insurance.”
Someone else voted NTA and wrote, “Your family is right, family shouldn’t sue each other, because it should be being repaid without courts.”
